How to find out if clouds will block the solar eclipse in your state
(A student tests a self-made filter and looks at the sun after a joint workshop between the Hong Kong Astronomical Society and Indonesia's National Institute of Aeronautics and Space (LAPAN) at a high school in Ternate islandThomson Reuters)
The United States will see a
total solar eclipse on August 21 for the first time in decades. Some people are traveling hundreds of miles to cities in the line of totality, like Nashville, Tennessee and Salem, Oregon.
But there is one thing that could put a damper on the event: clouds.
Esri, an international supplier of geographic information system (GIS) software, has created a cloud-cover prediction map for the time of the eclipse in every state. Michael Zeiler, a geographer at Esri, is producing new maps every day leading up to the eclipse.
As you can see in the map below, clouds could obscure the eclipse in most states in its path of totality, including Nebraska, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Idaho and Oregon are the only states where the sky could be mostly clear in the zone of totality.
We'll continue to update this map as it gets closer to the eclipse.
"Today's forecast show an overall improvement in most other places in the path, except for Nebraska," Zeiler told Business Insider.
(A weather map for the time of the August 21, 2017 eclipse, as of August 17.Michael Zeiler/GreatAmericanEclipse.com; ArcGIS/Esri)
A total
solar eclipse is an astronomical phenomenon that occurs when the moon passes between Earth and the sun, and appears to cover the latter. The two other types of eclipses are annular and partial, when the moon doesn't completely mask the sun.
Solar eclipses look different depending on the location. On August 21, the total solar eclipse will only cut through a 70-mile-wide band of the country, stretching from the northwest to the southeast US. Everyone in the US — from Maine to Alaska — will be able to experience at least a partial eclipse, weather permitting.
For most of the US, the eclipse will happen around lunchtime.
"This is the subject of intense interest for millions of people interested in going to see the eclipse," Cameron Lowe, a spokesperson for Esri, told BI. "Weather will be a huge factor."
Dave Mosher contributed to this story.
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